Natalia Roush

In my opinion, Natalia Roush is incompetent, clearly violated the Ethics & Standard Practices of The Nat'l Assn of Realtors, and Realty Austin did zero about it. Natalia suggested that I pay her friends $5,000 to do work (which seemed low quality), overestimated rental by nearly $1,000/mo (yes - I lost $10,000 per year) due to lack of market knowledge, and proposed a nearly $50,000 price cut on house she initially said would sell "above asking". To top it off, after firing her, I sold the house without a realtor for nearly $50,000 more than Natalia said she could get for it. I strongly suggest avoiding not only Natalia, but Realty Austin as well. I requested we go to non-binding arbitration to discuss my loss of up to $100,000, so an impartial 3rd party could hear us both out (as required by our contract) and RA refused to even participate. That's right - they refused to allow me the opportunity to present facts to an impartial 3rd party to get their opinion on a resolution. That says a lot to me about this company. Use someone else. THE DETAILS Condo Purchase * In April 2016 I advised Natalia that rental income was a major criterion for an investment condo, and after seeing places in the $500k range, I decided $3k/mo as the target rental income. * Within a day of providing the target, Natalia showed me a condo she said would rent for $3k/mo (what a coincidence!). * I made an offer of $510,000 and closed in July. From April to the closing Natalia never mentioned any change in the market or her rental projections. * But within only THREE weeks of the closing, her perspective changed dramatically (my guess is her commission check cleared), when she advised the rent only be $2,100 - $2,150/mo (not $3,000/mo). This is a gap of nearly $1,000/mo and over $10,000/year from her original. * Natalia's explanation for the huge difference was that the market was suddenly "flooded with listings". This just isn't plausible. * Rental units require permits and anything closing during the few week period would have had a contract signed months prior. I think Natalia either knew of pending inventory and withheld the information or violated ethics guidelines by not doing basic diligence. According to the Nat'l Assn of Realtors Ethics guidelines, a realtor must "have access to the information and resources necessary to formulate an accurate opinion" (11.1.2), are 2-1 "obligated to discover and disclose factors reasonably apparently to someone with expertise in those areas" (2-1), and "Shall avoid exaggeration, misrepresentation, or concealment of pertinent facts relating to the property or the transaction" (2-2). Her behavior seems to clearly violate these ethical standards. * It is impossible for me to believe a competent realtor would lack knowledge of such massive pending inventory that would cause price reductions of 30%+ in only 3 weeks. In other words, I think she knew and put her commission check above her ethical responsibilities. * So Natalia/Realty Austin walked away with a $10k+ commission check while I'm stuck with an enormous and mounting loss. I even contacted Natalia multiple times to ask for help selling the place, and she never even responded. Do you want to work with someone like that? Home Sale * Natalia said "We'll end up with multiple offers and we'll be able to push the pricing up" and proposed a listing price of $375,000. When this saga was over, I felt like she lied to get the listing and did this only to induce me to buy a condo (based on dishonest inflated rental income). * She then proposed that I pay two of her friends a total of $5,000 for painting and landscaping before she could put it on the market (note: the landscaping all died within months and I had to pay to have it redone). * Natalia delayed listing the home for over a month until the work was done and her friends were paid. She even collected the money for one of them (which seems odd to me in retrospect). During this time I signed a contract to buy the condo. I now wonder if her delay in listing the house was intentional. * The home was listed for $375,000 in May, and by August Natalia suggested I reduce the price to the $320-$330k range, at which point I took it off the market and rented it. Her reasons included the floor plan, the need for updates, and other things that I would think any competent realtor would be aware of when they took the listing. Based on the condo experience, and now this, I believed she had no idea what she was doing, or was dishonest and intentionally misled me. * Remember that during the time from May-August, I bought a condo based on her wildly inaccurate rental income estimates. Mysteriously, only weeks after the closing (i.e. about when her commission check cleared) she suggested I lower the house price. I wish you luck in your search for a realtor (and a home)